Beet Commentary by Ashley Swartz: Content Must is “Fluid”

VIEQUES, PR — In a fast-changing, multi-screen world, content and consumers are leading, rather than marketers, says Ashley Swartz, CEO and Founder of Furious Minds, in a state-of-the-nation video report from the Beet.TV Executive Retreat. “There is a fluidity of content. We are chasing, we are not leading. Audience behavior is changing faster than we can keep up. Content and distribution are following eyeballs and what comes next are brands and dollars,” she explains.

What’s more, this new world order is vastly more complex and requires new sets of skills and talents from marketers to not only understand communication, but also the guts of businesses, as well as P&Ls. To keep up, educators need to start teaching up-and-coming advertising entrants about programmatic buying, real-time buying, and the new directions of the industry. “We have to educate and make everyone a part of the conversation and not retain the elitist dialogue we have so far,” she says.

In addition to education, marketers need to be aware of the lessons of the past, and the music industry in particular. “We have a choice whether we become victims to technology or embrace it. We are on the cusp of a time of reinvention.”

Integral Ad Science, the New York-based tech company that describes itself as “the leader in quantifying digital media quality” has raised $67 million: $27 million in venture funding from Sapphire Ventures and $40 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. In this previously published ...

Going back a decade, when Millward Brown’s annual BrandZ study tracking the 100 most valuable global brands was first released, only one Chinese company made the list. Now there are 14, including the tech giants Tencent and Alibaba. “Most of them are big brands, but they’re not truly globalized brands ...

CHICAGO — The latest incarnation of a leading TV-synced online ads enabler is coming in to focus, with the announcement, by ad data company 4C Insights, that it has raised funds to acquire Teletrax, aiming to beef up its activities in social and TV advertising. “We’re playing aggressively in ...

The Jun Group, a New York-based video ad platform that places ads in custom video players on publisher sites and within mobile apps, has taken its first venture round since being formed in 2005, the company announced today. The company, founded in 205, has taken some debt financing and is profitable, CEO ...

Steven R. Swartz isn’t the only business reporter to make it big on the business side of reporting. Sequoia venture capitalist Michael Moritz wrote for Time magazine before making tech investments, for example. But he is one of the few to have risen to the very top of the company he has worked in for so ...

CANNES — One consequence of the rise of data-driven marketing is brands creating tens of even hundreds of ads for various audience segments for a single campaign, not just two or three like in the old days. It’s “great from a sales perspective and not so great from a marketing cost perspective,” ...

When J. Walter Thompson’s Non-Executive Chairman Bob Jeffrey got his start in advertising, it was normal for agencies to present a single TV spot to prospective clients in order to prove their credentials. For example, at Chiat/Day, where he worked early in his career, they showed the “1984” Apple ...

CANNES — So-called “addressable TV”, in which TV sets can now speak back to broadcasters, are tantalizing with the promise of household-level ad targeting. But addressable TV is not just about more refined TV targeting – the device in the living room is one platform that will feed ...

Less than 10 percent of e-commerce and advertising is powered digitally — but that will inevitably change. And the looming transformation will provides a twenty to thirty-year “tailwind” for the entire adtech and media industry which will mean vast opportunities for young people ...

In the past 10 years, since the WPP-owned global brand consultancy Millward Brown has tracked the value of brands with its BRANDZ 100 rankings, there have been many changes. Over that period, nearly half of the companies have changed. This upheaval has been powered by two major factors: geography and ...

CANNES – As addressable TV advertising emerges, so are a number of companies including Visible World (recently bought by Comcast), Clypd, Simulmedia and others. For the new medium to succeed, one essential will be companies that focus on yield management around addressable TV, says investment banker ...